The debate has raged on for the better part of 2 decades now, should kids be in worship with adults or should they be in kid's church?? Before I try to give any part of my opinion on this, I want to cover some of the arguments that I have heard for and against. There are basically three ways that churches handle this dilemma if that's what you want to call it.
First there is the argument that we are all one body so we should all be in worship as one body. Those churches do not have any kid's programming outside of maybe Sunday School classes for there children. Then there is the church who believes that most of what happens on Sunday mornings is probably over the head of their children, but it is important that the kids be in adult worship. After all how will they ever learn to sit still in church if they don't learn that when they are kids. So this church usually tries some sort of compromise. All of their children sit in worship during the singing portion of worship and then they are dismissed to Jr. Church as it's typically called.
The last approach is the one that I find myself currently involved with and I think it's the best. This is the church who believes that kids should be active in worship and not just sitting with the adults distracting (entertaining would be the more politically correct word) everyone around them. This group believes that kids are absolutely capable of worship but that also means that their corporate worship may look different than the traditional adult Sunday morning worship. Their remedy is to have Kid's church for the entire time that the adults are in worship. I believe that this is the best scenario but before I explain why, the reason why so many SR. Ministers or other church leadership people have balked at this is because for too long Youth Ministers have been a group of people that I would call all fun and games, and all they do during that time is play games and eat snacks. If that's the case then the kids would be well enough in adult worship with everyone else. But to those groups who prepare and every week create an environment for kids where they can come in and worship with other kids and have adults who have PREPARED actual lessons for them then this is the best route. In this situation kids can learn Biblical truths that will help them in their lives right now!! They are in an environment where they can learn and apply what they are taught and it's done on their level. I say that with this in mind we shouldn't dumb down are kids, but what is pertinent to a middle aged adult is not the same as what a 8 year old boy or girl should be learning. One of our elders here at Glenview said it this way, "you wouldn't take your child to a college class and expect them to learn anything in that class right? So why do we take our kids to adult worship and expect them to learn anything in there?" Fair question, so each week our great team of adult leaders create an environment for our kids to learn and apply and worship. One of the other neat things that we do with our curriculum is that it's a comprehensive curriculum, so our Sunday School class begins the lesson, our Kid's Worship time builds on that and then our kid's programming on Wednesday night closes out that lesson. If you are reading this and you attend Glenview then I would strongly urge if you don't already have your kids plugged into Kid's Worship that you get them plugged in, I don't think you will regret it.
